The display at a videoconferencing endpoint (EP) typically displays video images of one or more conferees and can also display one or more accessory elements. Accessory elements include text information elements, graphics elements, frames around conferees' images, line-art, presentations (content), etc. Some accessory elements can be created at a multipoint control unit (MCU) that controls the videoconferencing session. Such elements typically include an icon of a speaker, a display of a menu for controlling the conference, name of a displayed conferee, a frame around each one of the displayed conferees, etc. Some of the accessory elements can be created by the endpoint itself. These elements typically include an icon indicating a mute microphone, a display of a remote control unit associated with the endpoint, a small video image that is received from a local camera, etc. Other exemplary accessory elements that may be displayed on a screen of an endpoint can include information coming from other sources such as video streams coming from one or more IP servers, web-pages, presentations (content), etc.
Accessory elements that are created by an MCU are typically incorporated into the video stream that is sent from the MCU to an endpoint. This method has several shortcomings. The resolution of the accessory element is limited to the video resolution that is used during the current session, which is typically less than the resolution that a screen of an endpoint is capable of achieving. The quality of the displayed accessory element is therefore less than the quality that could be reached if the accessory element were displayed in the resolution of the screen. Creating the accessory element at the MCU furthermore requires video resources and bandwidth resources from the MCU per each current conferee in each current conference. In addition, accessory elements created and added by an endpoint are unknown to the MCU and therefore may compete on the same screen areas with information or video images that are sent by the MCU, resulting in a jumbled or blurred image from two resources that are not coordinated.